Tom Humphries talks to the Mayo manager ahead of tomorrow's semi-final as his side continue their journey away from last September's painful memories

What a boon John Maughan must be to that breed of GAA supporter who lives out in the snipe grass hurling insults and whispering rumours. The enduring phenomenon of Mayo defeats in big finals seems ever to be bringing the brickbats and the condolences down upon Maughan's head. Even those unheralded biblical prophets in their own land had an easier time than Maughan gets in his own county.

Nothing for it though but to keep getting back on the horse. Tomorrow Mayo's seniors play Armagh with a National Football League final place at stake. Maughan is glad of the game for several reasons, not least because it makes last Saturday recede in the rear-view mirror that little bit quicker. When your under-21 side go through 50 minutes of a Connacht final without scoring there's little use in holding postmortems. You walk on.

"Yeah. We got our arses kicked at under-21 level all right," he says. "This (Armagh game) focuses the mood straight away. The manner of the defeat last Saturday came as something of a shock but we knew we'd be up against it. We'll survive."

Survival is as much a central theme to Maughan's career as it is to Gloria Gaynor's and if he has learned one thing over the years it is about the futility of mulling and brooding over defeat.

This league campaign has been a tonic for Mayo, bridging the hurt of last September with the hope of this summer.

"It's that time of the year," he says. "The league has been good, very competitive this time. There's no team so far as I can see sitting back and ambling through it. It's very competitive. These Armagh boys seem to have their big guns back out, raring to go. They'll be five points a better team than they were a month ago. That's the sort of game we need."

A league final is the sort of engagement Mayo need as well. If they get back to Croke Park they'll shorten the run-in to their opening championship match with Roscommon (or, to be politically correct, London) on June 19th. You look at Maughan's young side and suspect the more big occasions they dine on, the better they will become.

Maughan himself has been intuitive in gauging how his players feel. There has been no slogging up mountains and wading through torrents for the Mayo footballers this spring. Not even a car-pushing session for old times' sake.

"We are totally relying on the residual fitness from last summer. We took a complete break until January, let everyone off to recharge the batteries. Then we came back training Tuesdays and Thursdays . We took the guys off the road, no commuting and travelling, we let most of them away to do their own little things weight-wise. The modern Gaelic footballer knows how to look after his body, that aspect of it has changed.

"We have a few guys carrying heavy in the tail end all right and they've been running a bit, but the McDonalds, the Nallens, the Heaneys, all those fellas get fit in a couple of weeks. So we're hoping that a league final appearance will close the gap to our championship and keep it all spinning."

Keeping it all spinning. That's the popular image of Maughan, running desperately around trying to keep every plate revolving. Somebody said to him once that if they gave out All-Irelands for having headers on the panel Mayo would do five in a row no problem. Headers or headstrong, it seems in Mayo that no sooner has one party been placated than a new grievance erupts. So it comes to pass that having coaxed Ciarán McDonald back into harness and into the form of his life Maughan finds himself without Peter Burke and David Brady this spring.

"Well, David Brady is the one people would be talking about. I know he wasn't happy about not starting the All-Ireland last year and that he has a concern about the way and the fashion in which it was delivered. That's the issue. I as the manager or George (Golden) or Liam (McHale), well if you make a mistake you forgive and forget and move on.

"David sat here in this office a short time ago and told me he was retiring from intercounty football and that he was considering his playing career at club level.

"That would be a great pity. I hope we'll revisit it in a few weeks and see what the situation is. We may not. It would be a pity for David though, something he'd regret later in life. As for me, any player who is good enough and who wants to play football for Mayo, I'm interested."

As for the goalkeeping vacancy, that appears to be solved for the foreseeable future. Mayo have had a few beauties between the posts down through the years but David Clarke seems to be the real thing and his work during the league campaign singles him out as a star in the making. Maughan, who rarely gushes, permits himself a gush.

"David Clarke? Well his ability has been well flagged since a few years ago coming through underage. He was out then for 18 months with a cruciate and a bad ankle injury. I haven't seen anything like his shot-stopping ability before. He is up there with the very, very best. Against Cork, Donegal, Tyrone this spring he's pulled off saves that are as good as anything you'd see in the Premiership."

A little new blood should revitalise this side and tomorrow's matinee with the more muscular boys from Armagh will provide an interesting test of Mayo's commitment to playing attractive football. Through the league the raiding performances of Conor Moran and Peadar Gardiner have been among the more thrilling spectacles on offer but, as Maughan laments, "those Armagh fellas have a way of putting a stop to that".

"We play very open football but our style of football is largely dictated by the personnel we have at our disposal. People say we've been playing an open style of football, well that's determined by the type of player we have. Mayo have always been a traditional football team, an old-fashioned football county. That's the sort of players we produce.

"People comment on the wing backs. Conor Moran is full of dash. He's a terrific athlete, he likes to attack. He did it brilliantly against Tyrone. Peadar Gardiner, well the best aspect of his game is going forward, huge pace. If you have those guns at your hip you might as well use them, get the opposition wing forwards defending. A lot of wing forwards in the modern game are going deep. You try and counter that with letting a Peadar Gardiner go and attack them. We have a bit of flair there but it doesn't work in every circumstance."

Of course the principal circumstance on which it hasn't worked was last summer's All-Ireland final. Mayo looked set fair and confident. They'd spent plenty of summer afternoons in Croke Park after all disposing of Tyrone and Fermanagh. And then? A green and gold iceberg. How have they mended?

"To be honest, we just steered clear of it. We let it all settle down. When we came back we were pleasantly surprised at the energy levels and the appetite for action. September hasn't been mentioned once. We didn't go there, didn't see the need. Nobody likes to be reminded. It doesn't do any good for the body and soul of a team.

And for a manager?

"There's times when I look back but it's not as difficult to take as the '96 one, which we should have won. Last September we were beaten out the gate. We didn't perform. Even had we played well we might have struggled. When you get a beating in that fashion, there's not a lot you can do. No point in dwelling on it.

"I still don't know exactly why a team doesn't perform on the day. We were up there three or four times last summer. For the final there was no change in approach, or in any aspect.

"The further you go on, you pull more rabbits out of the hat, little things. You focus on the whole psychology aspect of it. It wasn't stage-fright. We'd been there before.

"If anything, I think we were too relaxed. I remember on the bus leaving the hotel remarking to George and Liam, 'Jesus these guys are very, very relaxed'. If anything they were too relaxed. Once we got near Croke Park and the crowd and the atmosphere you hope that'll change. I can't put my finger on it. We were beaten all ends up."

He laughs. The country behind is old territory, fallow in his mind. You mention to him that he has grown mellow.

"Do you reckon?" he asks. "Maybe the old steam has been boiled out of me but the intensity of the hunger for success and the appetite for involvement is still there. The voice is getting a bit lazy maybe.

"It's still the same story though. If you win by a point every trick you pulled has been an enormous success. If you lose by a point you hear the whispers everywhere - 'Do ye know what your man did the week before the All-Ireland? Did you hear what they were at?'"

The snipe grass and the field of play are different states. Independent both, and not much impressed with each other either.